Perakamari is going to celebrate tonight!! 

Swans waitin' for the summer 

Hoikkaset Ensemble keikalla taas

And again Hoikkaset Ensemble had a gig. This time we played for local veterans of war. Old music, wartime melodies. Finns who were in the military service during the Second World War are today all quite old - almost eighty or more years. And we played music for them - from the era when they were young. That was quite good and actually a meaningful service.

Spring is near. Ice is rapidly melting. Lake Keitele will soon be free from the bonds of cold winter.

Juha H.

Hoikkaset Ensemble keikalla

Hoikkaset Ensemble had a gig. Music at an Art Exhibition in Aanekoski. And once again it was a surprise for us musicians what we would play. We play one composition and after that one of us musicians proposes what next. That's how it goes - today one hour of music. And some of the arrangements and compositions were such that I'd never even heard them before. Sheet music on a stand and off we go...

Juha H.

Runomusa vain edistyy

Poetry and music-project rehearsed again. Finally all three of us at the same time in the same place. Everything seems to be ok - poems make a story and music binds it all together. Though afterwards I did think of adding a poem that would tell something of ugly, even cruel things. There is some pain and misery involved in the storyline, but no ugliness. Beauty is a bit more beautiful with some ugly on the side... But in the end beauty, peace and happiness stuff should win. Still it may be that I leave everything as is. Actually that's quite likely...

Juha H.

Improvisages Live 2005 

Runomusa edistyy

Poetry and music project is finally getting ready. Today I chose some sixteen poems of Katri Vala and Edith Sodergran, added Perakamari's music and made a story, a whole of it. After that Maija and I went it through first time. It is possible that some of the poems and music may change but as a whole it seems quite ready. And it felt good to go through. The story is a human journey to the "Blossoming Fields" (a poem of Katri Vala) - "...way to the land that is not..." (Edith Sodergran). And after all it- life, journey - seems to be worth taken.

Juha H.

Ensemble Modern

Listening to Ensemble Modern playing Frank Zappa's music - Greggery Peccary and other persuasions. Wonderful precision and skilled playing. What a band! It was very good that Zappa in his final years found such a wonderful Ensemble - or was it that Modern asked Zappa to write music for them... This particular Persuasions CD is recorded 2002 - almost ten years after Zappa's death. (And I still have his picture on the toilet wall!) Luckily Todd Yvega could produce ordinary MIDI data from original Synclavier files. And with such meticulous precision Ensemble Modern plays those pieces of music. Thank you very much!

My own project Colours is ready. Been listening it, too. Actually its name changed to Onnellinen oranssi (Happy Orange).

Juha H.

Hoikkaset Ensemble (Photo by Markku Lahti) 

Hoikkaset

Practising, practising once again. Hoikkaset Ensemble had a rehearsal. Some gigs coming. Hoikkaset is a bit strange band. While practicing we play this music and while LIVE in many cases we play something else. This makes gigs quite exciting. You never know what's going to happen. That's good.

Juha H.

Runomusiikkia

Maija Piitulainen visited and recited some poetry. Katri Vala and Edith Sodergran. So many poems to choose and build a recital. Later Perakamari will add the music to the whole. Four, five weeks and it must be ready.

Busy, busy day. And still I have to stay awake to practise some flute for tomorrow.

Juha H.

Onnellinen oranssi

Back to duty. I'm finally ok and I can leave military books to rest - for a while at least.

Onnellinen oranssi ( Happy Orange in English) is almost ready. It's part of the Colours project. Last week I recorded some woodwinds for it - so the structure of the composition was ready. Today I recorded bass guitar, some more woodwinds and percussions. Sini sang the melody. The mixing is almost ready.

I've also recorded some funk. And before I go to sleep I'll record some more funk. Surprisingly it's music for the Funk Project.

Juha H.

Vappata vai?

Off duty. I'm a bit sick. So it's wise to rest for a couple of days.

Began reading Monte Cassino by Matthew Parker. A military book once again. Fever makes me tired. Couldn't do much but read. Played only for a couple of hours flute...

Juha H.

The stage is ready - Saturday, just before the concert 

Vastarakit ovat tulleet!

Wagtails have come. Spring is near. Wonderful! ( Pardon me I don't write all words with correct Finnische letters ... Why is it that so many folks can not write their words, their languages correctly with Ä and Ö and so on... Anglo-Americans have taken it all... ?)

Improvisages concert, The Happening was ok - though there were not so many people in the audience. Music and the playing was good and Ari's pictures were quite fantastic.

Right now Jori is at an other gig in Pieksanmaki. Ari is probably having some good time with his other friends. I'm home and quite happy. Sini and I made a bonfire at our backyard and after that sauna. Right now I'm very relaxed.

Juha H.

Iltaa

Improvisages rehearsed - with pictures and all. Everything is pretty much ready for tomorrow.

We, Sini and I, watched a movie - The Terminal. Little big story. We both laughed some but it was touching, too.

Juha H.

Improvisages 

Ari with his SyncMachine before a concert

Kuvista

Ari and I worked with the picture sequence for the next Saturday's Improvisages Happening. Now the running order is ready - some 330 Ari's paintings are waiting for to be reflected on a big screen. We selected thirteen sync points for the pictures to be in time with music - though the hit points are more like approximations . Final syncing Ari'll do live on stage.

Two laptops, a data projector, piles of musical instruments, PA, a movie theater and us - that should be it!

Juha H.

Renataan taas vai...?

Poetry and music rehearsal was canceled - once again. Next week practicing is a must. Otherwise we'll run out of time. But then on the other hand less poetry and more music. That's the way Perakamari can make it quite easily.

Juha H.

Concert Poster of Improvisages 

Ja taas vain renataan

Improvisages had a rehearsal. One week to our next concert. On tuesday Ari and I will make the picture sequence and on friday one more rehearsal. That should be enough.

Juha H.

Ja taas renataan

Perakamari had a rehearsal. Music was fine and the duo is in pretty good shape. At the same time we had some thoughts about the forthcoming poetry and music concert. Probably we don't need to create any new music. I believe we can just select from the material we've composed during the years.

Maybe I should update Perakamari's Web pages. They are way too old.

Juha H.

Viikonloppu

Weekend. That's very right.

Yesterday Sini and I went to a concert - Otra Vez in Suolahtisali, Finland. Wow!! I've heard the quintet for a few times - LIVE! But again the Ensemble surprised me. ( And that is wonderful...) "Them" musicians are very talented, the music itself is very demanding and they play it the most skillfully. And that's why - the Wow!! The music they play is the TANGO! The years I've known them they've played mostly Astor Piazzolla's music. But as the years've gone by they've composed more and more music of their own... That is very good. The Otra Vez's musicians are very good improvisers. The complexity of the composed material with mixing of it with the the improvised fragments was quite wonderful. Thank you very much. For the second part of the concert some thirteen string players were added. The music was slightly more relaxed and yet very enjoyable!

In music I've always liked beautiful complexity - and sometimes even simplicity... like the blues. The Blues is a hard way to combine musically quite simple things with profound depth...

Juha H.

Improvisages practising improvisation...

Funk

Pete the Bass Player and Junnu visited. Now I'm a little bit more knowledgeable about the coming Funk-project. Well, I believe it's going to be interesting.

Now I have two tracks of Funk on hard disk. Loaded them in Pro Tools and jammed some. And of course I went further - wrote a sort of melody line to the other song. Both tracks will have vocals added later.

Juha H.

Nettisivuista

Made a little Web page for Improvisages. It can be found here . I had just few megs space where to ram some stuff: some lines of text, some links and five tracks of music. It is only an outpost for this Blog. Just something that people can hear that we do make music. Talk is cheap - music is the real thing.

Two of the tracks are composed, written down on paper beforehand - rest is mostly improvised music. You can hear the difference, I believe.

I made the page with Front Page. That was ok. But Internet Explorer shows it a little bit this way and Firefox shows it a little bit that way. Well, I'll propably leave it the way it is - at least for the time being.

Juha H.

Renataan, renataan

Improvisages had a pretty long rehearsal. About six hours. Anyways it was good to play and create music. Again, I recorded most of it. Very much of what we did was improvised. Some of the music was quite weird and at the same time wonderful.

Now I need a place in the Net where I can put some of our music for people to hear. Unfortunately at the moment most of my netspace is in use. Perakamari and Machine Men have almost all of it.

Juha H.

Dawn in the Winter 

Rentoa purppuraa

Recorded bass guitar and a couple of tracks guitars to Rento purppura (Relaxed Purple) - a composition of mine. Hopefully tomorrow I can mix it. Right now I'm too tired for that. Too much work, too little sleep. Rest, rest.

Hoikkaset Ensemble had a rehearsal. It was very nice.

Juha H.